UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Antoine Francois Momoro: "First Printer of National Liberty", 1756-1794 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1r50c825 Author Phelan, Grace M. Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ ANTOINE FRANÇOIS MOMORO “First Printer of National Liberty” 1756-1794 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Grace M. Phelan September 2015 The Dissertation of Grace M. Phelan is approved: _______________________________ Professor Jonathan Beecher, Chair _______________________________ Professor Mark Traugott _______________________________ Professor Marilyn Westerkamp ___________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Grace M. Phelan 2015 Table of Contents List of Illustrations iv Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1. From Besançon to Paris: Momoro's transition from Old Regime libraire to "First Printer of National Liberty" 14 2. Momoro's Political Ascendancy in Sectional Politics 84 3. Traité Elémentaire de l'Imprimerie: Conservative Instruction from the "First Printer of National Liberty" 177 4. Letters from the Vendée: Momoro's Narrative of Revolution and Counter- Revolution 252 Epilogue 321 Appendix A: Books Sold by Momoro, 1788-1790 325 Appendix B: Momoro's Publications, 1789-1793 338 Archival Sources 356 Works Cited 357 iii List of Illustrations 1. Premier Imprimeur de la Liberté Nationale 53 2. Second portrait of Momoro by Peronard 54 iv ABSTRACT Grace M. Phelan ANTOINE FRANCOIS MOMORO: "First Printer of National Liberty" 1756-1794 Antoine François Momoro (1756-1794) appears in historiographies of the French Revolution, in the history of printing and typography and in the history of work during the eighteenth century. Historians of the 1789 Revolution have often defined Momoro as either a sans-culottes or spokesman for the sans-culottes. Marxist historians and thinkers defined Momoro as an early socialist thinker for his controversial views on price fixing and private property. In the history of printing, Momoro's two treatises on printing and imposition are considered with varying degrees of significance, while Momoro's legacy as a printer and typographer remains nearly undisputed over the past two centuries. Momoro was in fact all of these things -- sans culottes, socialist, author, printer and typographer -- to a degree. This dissertation asserts that as a historical figure Momoro should be remembered precisely for the tension between his desires to maintain traditional standards in printing and his intense advocacy of the eradication of aristocratic privilege. My dissertation examines Momoro's evolution into the "First Printer of National Liberty" during the first months of relative press freedom in August 1789 and charts his increased political participation in radical political circles in Paris. It includes detailed analysis of Momoro's two printing manuals and reveals the conservative nature of his v stance regarding traditional standards and practices in the trade despite his radical political views. The dissertation concludes with detailed analysis of Momoro's correspondence as Commissaire Nationale in the Vendée in 1793 as evidence of his increased radicalization and advocacy of the Terror. vi For Frances and Raymond Phelan who taught me the value of hard work vii Acknowledgments Numerous people have provided me with invaluable support and encouragement since the inception of this project. I am sincerely grateful to my advisor, Professor Jonathan Beecher, for his steadfast support, encouragement and interest in this project. His infectious enthusiasm for learning ignited my curiosity about French history and fueled my interest in biography as a means of understanding historical movements. I also would like to thank Professor Mark Traugott for his thoughtful comments on the final draft of my dissertation and to Professor Lynn Westerkamp for her support during my years as a graduate student. I am very grateful to the History Department at UCSC for their financial support for my initial research trip to France and for their faith in me over the years. I also want to thank the Graduate Division for their financial support for subsequent research trips. I am indebted to the administrative staff in the History Department, those quiet soldiers who listened patiently and took action on my behalf on numerous occasions over the years. Thank you Diane Arias, Meg Lillienthal, Stephanie Hinkle and, most recently, Cindy Morris. A am indebted to the librarians at McHenry Library and to all those magicians in the Interlibrary Loan department who brought me in touch with the eighteenth century. The New York Public Library, the Newberry Library and McGill University in particular were very generous in sharing Momoro's publications and journals with me. Thank you also to the numerous archivists and library staff in Paris at the viii Bibliothèque Nationale, the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and the Archives Nationale who helped me navigate their systems during my research visits. Thank you also to the librarians at Knight Library at the University of Oregon for their invaluable help with Interlibrary Loan during the completion of this project. Finally, my sincere gratitude to my family and friends for their interest and unflagging support during this project, in particular my brothers, Tim and Ray and the incomparable Sabina Mayo-Smith. A profound thank you to Pam Miller, who asked me the question "What about college?" all those years ago, and who stuck with me while I made my way there. I am sincerely grateful to the Renard family in France for welcoming me so warmly into their home numerous times and for teaching me so much about French culture. Mille fois merci Sylvia, Aurelie and Laeticia. And finally, to Mary Wood, whose constant love, encouragement and quiet pressure saw me through the completion of this project. ix INTRODUCTION "If there are names destined to never perish, it is those of the Booksellers and Printers."1 In the opening pages of Catalogue Chronologique des Libraires et des Libraires-Imprimeurs de Paris, eighteenth century master printer Augustin-Martin Lottin counseled his fellow booksellers and printers to ensure their place in history through the correct usage of their baptismal names. He praised the legacy left by the great printers, what the names of past printers like the Etiennes or the Morels came to represent, and impressed on his colleagues the need to record themselves for posterity and take their place in the historical record alongside their great predecessors. Lottin's confident assertion of the printer/bookseller's significance is reflective of the pride felt by centuries of artisans. The name of Antoine François Momoro, who lived from 1756 to 1794, has not perished, and, in this sense, Lottin's sentiment proves itself to be true. Momoro's name appears for posterity at the bottom of countless medical texts, pamphlets, and journals. But he is not remembered for his contribution to printing in the traditional sense Lottin referred to; Momoro did not print or sell refined texts or scholarly collections of Greek or Latin classics, as did his predecessors in the trade. In fact, he tends to be remembered first for his radical 1 Augustin-Martin Lottin, Catalogue Chronologique des Libraires et des Libraires- Imprimeurs de Paris. (Paris: Chez Jean-Roch Lottin, 1789), xix. 1 political affiliations and for his role in the Terror, while his role as a printer is subsumed within these radical tendencies. Historians familiar with his status as a revolutionary have tended to assume he was a revolutionary printer. However, his well-known printing manual, Traité Elémentaire de l'Imprimerie, is hardly revolutionary. On the contrary, it upholds the strict standards of his trade. This dissertation asserts that as a historical figure Momoro should be remembered precisely for the tension between his desires to maintain traditional standards in printing and his advocacy of the eradication of aristocratic privilege. Antoine François Momoro appears in historiographies of the French Revolution, in the history of printing and typography and in the history of work during the eighteenth century. Historians of the 1789 Revolution have often defined Momoro as either a sans-culottes or spokesman for the sans-culottes. Marxist historians and thinkers defined Momoro as an early socialist thinker for his controversial views on price fixing and private property. In the history of printing, Momoro's two treatises on printing and imposition are considered with varying degrees of significance, while Momoro's legacy as a printer and typographer remains nearly undisputed over the past two centuries. Momoro was in fact all of these things -- sans culottes, socialist, author, printer and typographer -- to a degree. Momoro wrote two important printing manuals that defined his career and shed considerable light on Old Regime and revolutionary artisanal culture. His Manuel des Impositions and Traité Elementaire de l'Imprimerie belong to a genre 2 dating back to the seventeenth century with Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises.2 In France, Martin Dominique Fertel published the first printer's manual in 1723, La Science Pratique de l'Imprimerie. Manual authors sought to impart their specific knowledge to a wider audience and in the process defended their own competence and prominence in the trade. These goals are clearly evident in Momoro's work to some extent. However, his intention in publishing the manual is disputable and an issue at the heart of this study. In her excellent book on publishing during the Revolutionary era, Carla Hesse claims that Momoro published his manual to spread the refined knowledge of printing to a wider audience; I find this to be largely improbable.3 Judging by his manual, Momoro was not in fact a revolutionary printer; rather, his manual shares more in common with the views of his conservative predecessor, Martin Dominique Fertel.